No Money, Make Coffee

The obsession with the phrase ‘No Money, No Honey’ is popular, and is especially true for older guys, or should I say matured guys, when it comes to finding young companions. In many ways, this saying reflects the ultimate truth of human nature when it comes to the distinction of age: how and why do some young and beautiful ladies end up with much older men or vice versa?

‘Love’ is always the most popular answer as it holds up to the ethical part of the law of not being a gold digger, or as we Asians say, ‘money faced’. Although there are some such couplings of those with large age gaps that come together because of true love, a vast majority of these couples are together simply under the disguise of a win-win situation or what is politely refered to as a marriage of convenience. This is a true revelation of the older generation, but what about the current Generation Y?

Today’s Generation Y are a bunch of young and smart people who have never experienced any crisis during their young life. While many Malaysians above a certain age have been through the British colonial period, the Japanese occupation, the May 13 riots, Operasi Lalang, the global financial crisis, etc, this group of lucky late-comers have everything they could ever want the minute they came out from their mothers’ wombs. All they have to do is cry!

Mum and dad are always there to make sure that they have the best of the best. Why such indulgence, some may ask? The simple answer is that nowadays family groupings are much smaller with only one or two children unlike the good old days where most families had more than four or five children.

One cannot blame this fearless generation for wanting more and better since most of them have yet to meet the bad side of what growing up can be about. All they want are the simple things in life – good pay, good position, good benefits, good everything and less work. Hence, many have chosen the popular career path of joining up with a few friends and starting their own business – a modern-day ‘marriage’ of convenience.

Mums and dads are willing to be the main financiers as long as their children are happy without taking into much account whether they are experienced enough or not to run their own business. The most popular business for this generation is the lifestyle café.

Not the tried and tested formulas of established brands such as Coffee Bean or Dome, but the decorative, themed-cafés of various concepts. Simple and easy way of making money, so to speak.